FLOCKS SUFFER

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 275, 16 August 1932, Page 10

FLOCKS SUFFER

Wairarapa High Country RECENT SNOWSTORM No Mortality Among Cattle Dominion Special Service. Masterton, August 15. The unusually severe nature of the recent snowstorm experienced in Wairarapa has given rise to some exaggerated stories of the mortality amongst stock. There has been mortality, but stories of sheen and cattle starving to death through being unable to get at the grass for snow, or becoming snowblind and in their aimless wanderings being drowned in creeks and lagoons, are characterised by responsible farmers as ridiculous. Equally ridiculous are stories of sheep devouring the bark off limbs of forest trees which are said to have been broken off by the weight of snow or sliding down the glass-like sides of gullies into drifts 15 to 20 feet in depth. • The actual position in the Wairarapa, according to information obtained by “The D.ominion” from authoritative sources, is that , there has been no mortality .whatever amongst cattle — indeed, there are very few cattle in the district at this time of the year—but there has, unfortunately, been a certain amount of mortality amongst sheep, due to the fact that so many ewes are heavy with lamb. r It is impossible to accurately estimate the full extent of this mortality at - present. East Coast stations will not be free of snow for another three or four days, and shepherds are only now getting at the sheep on outlying portions of the properties. In addition, the severity of the weather of the past fortnight will show its effect further when the ewes commence lambing during the next few weeks. The probable loss in flocks on high East Coast stations, however, is estimated on good authority as high as 25 per cent. The Hon. A. D. McLeod, M.P., whose electorate includes the Haurangl district, which contains the highest farming land in the Wairarapa, and has, consequently, suffered severely, told “The Dominion” to-night that, in company with the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr. Mclntosh, the Supervisor of Crown Lands, Mr. McGill, and Ml L. Daniell, of the Land Board, he had visited a number of/East Coast stations yesterday. He characterised as nonsense one report which had been published regarding the conditions in the district, but said that the mortality amongst sheep was undoubtedly fairly serious. One had only to see the number of sheepskins hanging on fences on farms to realise that. It was impossible to accurately estimate the mortality; that would probably not be known until shearing time.